Mary and Gisela

   

      From Mary Grace's My Life:

Mary Grace and Gisela Kamm - 1937

    When I was 12 we got new neighbors north of us. A German Psychiatrist and his wife and stepdaughter, Gisela moved in.

Lawrence J. Friedman writes in his book, Menninger: The Family and the Clinic, of Bernard Kamm, Gisela's stepfather, that Dr. Kamm realized his well-known antipathy towards the Nazi's antisemitism made it necessary for him to leave Europe. The Menningers wanted to bring Sigmund Freud to the U.S., although that didn't happen. But they did recruit other German psychiatrists to their clinic in Topeka and Dr. Kamm was one of them. Mary Grace also said that Gisela's father was Jewish and the Kamms felt that it was unsafe for her to remain there also.The Kamms spent 3 years in Topeka before moving to San Francisco. Mary Grace wrote in My Life that she always liked Dr. Kamm because he told her she would never be crazy.



After Gisela moved to San Francisco they exchanged more than 15 letters that survive. Mary Grace must have enjoyed the first letter dated July 16, 1939, in which Gisela wrote: Thanks for the letter, you are as funny on paper, as in reality.

But to tie this post to last week's, we'll jump to a letter in 1941.

Letter postmarked June 17, 1941:

Listen Dear Toots!
How are you? That accident still has me worried. You make more mistakes in a letter. Were your parents nice about it?

School ends June 14th. What do you plan to do now? Tell me everything you do.

I went to the Lowell Graduation Ball the other night with a cute red, white formals (with a long, too, of course, Lawrence. I've been going with him a year (it was our anniversary night, but now we've broken up. Or rather I told him that I didn't like him any more. He still likes me, the sissy.

I wish I weren't so particular about boys. There is one that likes me and really spends money on me, but I won’t see him anymore. I’m at last going to take piano lessons again.

I saw Citizen Kane and it was so wonderful. My parents saw it 3 times.

Sometimes I wish that I could drop in on you. I’m sort of homesick.

Mary Grace & Tarbaby 1935

Do you know who Wiedemann is? I bet you don’t. Well, he is the German consul here, handsome. His son goes to Lowell and he is on my bus every morning. Boy is he cute. To think that he is a Nazi is a pity. 
The Kamms had lived in the U.S. for more than five years, but still hadn't become citizens. Mary Grace received a letter from Gisela written a week after Pearl Harbor.

Dear Mary!

You should see the calm excitement here. Last Sunday we all had our ears glued to the radio. I spoke to as many of my friends as I could and we all felt very different. Of course, it is sort of hard to understand because you are not quite in the midst of it, but we felt that our whole life had been changed. Some things were of less importance. Last Monday I was practicing, the sirens blew and we had a blackout at 6:30. At first I was awfully nervous and then mother and I walked around and saw how people reacted. We explored for 2 hours and it was fun. The blackout was not such a success. You ought to see our house now, though. Dad takes everything very seriously. He has bathtubs full of water, both upstairs and downstairs. Blue lamps everywhere and black cloth over many windows. He is doing a good job of it. I wish we would have some more practice blackouts. Advice as to how to behave in case of an air raid, is instantly announced over the radio. First aid classes are being organized. We bought a portable radio and I’m going to have only one piano lesson a month. In . . . we are preparing for war. We have been here over 5 years and had our second papers in, but now no alien can become American. That’s tough because we hoped for it.
By February 1942 the Kamms were being relocated to Chicago.

Listen to this. We are going to Chicago. I don’t know whether you have followed the enemy alien situation in California or not, but here are the many reasons. We are not quite citizens yet because it takes so long before we are called. We handed in our second papers last year but . . . there are other things to do. Dad left yesterday and we will follow when we have packed and when I can get out of school. I think they will let out early because I have all the requirements for graduation and the entrance into the Northwestern University. We are trying to sell our lovely new furniture because it is too expensive to transport but in these times who wants to buy things on the unsafe West Coast. I am rather excited over the idea although we had thought this would be our home now. It is very beautiful as you well know and we had very many friends here. And what about Lawrence? We have gone steady now and we have gone together for two years and we wanted to marry later when he was through with college. I am sending this picture to give you again an idea as to the view from our 8-room flat. There are the times when the fog rolls in and envelops everything, or the time when it is so sunny and peaceful. It is that way now and I am going to sun myself to get a deeper tan. The view at night is especially breathtaking when it is dark and all the little towns around the black bay are lighted up and twinkle and the red lights of the Golden Gate Bridge are lighted. Boy, my typing can certainly stand improvements. 

**************

Do you know all the rules we aliens have to follow? I can’t go out any more, nor my mother, after 9 o’clock. You know what that means to a growing girl. We have to carry an identification with us. We may not be in certain zones like the embarcadero and the Marina Boulevard. We can’t go outside the 5-mile limit and we are leaving for Chicago ask for permission 7 days before we leave.


Gisela and her mother came through Topeka on their way to Chicago and Mary Grace and Gisela got together. But after she got to Chicago she never heard from her again.